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Her expression in profile seemed happy enough, so I let her be until it was time to leave.

Our sixth afternoon since leaving Seiryuu City passed with a slight air of satisfaction.

We left the Kuhanou County town of Noukee and set up camp around late afternoon in a meadow near a little brook.

In order to ward off trouble, I’d chosen a shady place around the trees that would be difficult to spot from the main road.

I’d chosen to camp here so that we could butcher the beasts we’d collected the day before.

Even if they wouldn’t lose any freshness in Storage, they still had to be processed before we could use them for cooking.

With the camp preparations finished, the beastfolk went about the main task of stripping the bodies. Lulu and Nana also helped with preparations for processing the meat afterward.

Mia and Arisa disliked the smell of blood, so I sent them downstream to look for wild grass and herbs.

Now, there was a lot to do this time. I should really help out, too.

I summoned my resolve and joined Liza and the others as they took care of the wolves by the riverbank.

“Is something the matter, Master?”

Liza placed the wolf head she’d just removed onto a nearby stone and turned to me.

—I made eye contact with the freshly severed head.

My motivation was draining with tremendous speed.

“Oh, no, I just happened to bring down a wild boar on my walk last night. Could you disassemble it, too?”

My mouth moved on its own, quickly changing the subject.

I used the Garage Bag to reach into Storage and take out the small boar.

Liza admired it and said, “You never fail to impress, Master.”

“Boar meeeat?”

“It looks delicious, sir!”

Pochi and Tama accepted my offering and placed it on a large stone under Liza’s instruction.

“I’ll leave the rest to you.”

“Yes, please look forward to tonight’s dinner.”

Liza put a hand to her chest excitedly, so I told her I trusted she’d do a great job and ventured a little ways downstream.

“Ah, Master! We’ve got a big catch!”

“Satou.”

Arisa showed me a basket full of fish. She’d used Psychic Magic on the river to catch them.

The basket Mia held as she played the reed pipe contained a plethora of nuts, berries, and mushrooms. I’d have to analyze the mushrooms later.

…That’s right, even if I can’t deal with beast corpses, I should be able to handle fish, at least.

I returned to the campsite with the two to process the fish that Arisa had caught. Of course, I had Liza show us how to do it first.

To begin, I grasped the slippery body of the fish and removed the scales. The way the scales stuck to my hands was kind of gross, but I managed it anyway and inexpertly chopped the head off with a kitchen knife.

Next, I removed the pectoral fin and slit the belly open, removed the intestines, and tossed them away into the river just as Liza had. I did my best to throw out the memory of the slippery, squirmy guts along with them.

I had to take a break after I dropped the slime into the clean water of the creek.

After that, the rest was easy. My “Disassembly” and “Cooking” skills took over to fillet the fish into three pieces.

We took care of the rest of the fish in the same way.

As I cleared my head of thoughts and mechanically performed the motions, I gained the skill “Serenity.” If samurai existed in this world, I bet they’d be pissed at me for attaining that so easily.

I also gained the rather strange title of Demolition Worker. I have to say, that sounds more like it has to do with knocking down buildings than cooking.

“Excuse me, Master. I’m impressed with your remarkable finesse. But what are we going to do with all of these?”

…Yeah, I didn’t think that far ahead.

My silence spoke volumes to Arisa, who shook her head in a long-suffering manner.

I racked my brain to come up with a use for the fish.

“We could fry them… Oh, but we have no oil.”

“Or breadcrumbs and eggs.”

We didn’t have nearly enough oil to make any fried food. We had plenty of fatty meat, but it’d be a pain to make oil from it. I’d have to buy enough for frying when we reached the next town.

Suddenly, I looked to Liza and the others as they dismantled the brown wolves.

With all the meat and entrails they were producing, there was no way we’d use it all up for tonight’s dinner. If we cooked fifteen fish on top of that, nobody would be able to finish.

“All right, let’s dry them, then.”

“Yes, considering what’s happening over there, that’s probably for the best.”

Looking at the mountain of meat piling up next to Liza and company, Arisa wearily trudged toward the river to join Mia in gathering shiny pebbles on the bank.

Arisa was a former Japanese person and previously a princess, so I imagined she was as uncomfortable as I was about disassembling game.

I watched her out of the corner of my eye, then laid out the filleted fish on a wooden tray and salted them generously.

All that’s left after that is for the sun to dry out all the moisture, and they’ll be done… I think.

“Master, if you are drying fish, it is necessary to immerse them in salt water first so that the salt will soak into the inside of the body.”

I’d started to line up the salted fillets in the sun, but Liza stopped me.

She explained that the proper procedure involved soaking the fish in a salty brine for thirty minutes or so, then rinsing them with water, and finally, drying them in a sunny place with good ventilation.

I followed the steps according to Liza’s explanation. Thanks to the support of my “Cooking” skill, I had a general idea of how much salt was necessary. I could tell when it had been long enough without checking the clock, too, driving home the power of the skill system.

I washed the fillets and laid them out side by side on a large plate.

Now I just had to make sure bugs wouldn’t get them.

I called out to Arisa down near the riverbank.

“Arisa! Sorry, but could you help out with Insect Repellent?”

“Okeydokey.”

Arisa’s Insect Repellent spell was an original spell designed by yours truly. I’d come up with it after seeing her use the Psychic Magic spell Anxiety Field to drive away pests.

This particular magic made insects wary. I’d made one for small animals, too, but Tama was so sensitive to nearby critters that she couldn’t calm down, so we’d discarded that one.

The intent of the spell was to ensure that we could sleep comfortably at night during a campout. Just one use would last until the next morning.

Now, time for the main event.

Having cleared the fish-handling mission, I was a new man.

All right, time to disassemble some wolves…

“…Liza?”

“Yes, what can I do for you?”

I was a little nonplussed at Liza’s fixation on the collection of severed heads. “Oh, I was simply wondering if we would be able to cook these somehow, since there are so many…”

We could probably use the tongue and brain tissue and whatever else, but I kept that to myself. I definitely wasn’t ready to watch someone take apart a severed head.

“I can ask for you next time we visit a butcher shop in town.”

“Yes, please do!”

Liza’s expression was bright with anticipation, which was a little surreal given the wolf head in her hands.

I carefully avoided meeting its eyes this time and assisted with the rest of the disassembly.

These were slimy in a different way than the fish, but I didn’t want to look bad in front of everyone, so I kept my cool. The trick was to avoid eye contact with the corpse when I cut off its head.

Along the way, I tried the Demolition Worker title that I’d gotten earlier, but it didn’t make a difference as far as I could tell. What exactly does it mean, then?

With all the butchering we were doing, the smell was becoming awfully potent.

I caught sight of Mia and Arisa, still searching for pretty stones on the riverbank, and called the elf over. I asked her to wash us clean with magic.

But one round wasn’t enough to eliminate the obstinate smell completely.

“Sorry, Mia, but can you drink an MP recovery potion and try again?”

“Nuh-uh.”

Mia refused, making an X over her mouth with her fingers.

“Bitter.”

Are MP recovery potions really that gross?

“It’s true. No one wants to drink them except in an emergency. Why don’t you wash up normally with hot water? I’ll even wash your back for you, Master.”

“Mrrrr. Lewd.”

Thanks to Arisa’s careless remark, Mia downed a magic recovery potion in one gulp and used the spell on me again. Her face was screwed up in disgust, so I gave her some of the thorn licorice to cleanse her palate.

Since I’d cleaned off first, I sat in the shade of the carriage building magic tools.

I had been in charge of the kettle for a while, but though I had bathed with the beastfolk girls before in the castle guesthouse, I felt I should leave once Nana and Lulu started getting undressed.

Clearly, women in this world didn’t have much shyness or modesty when it came to nudity.

Memories of the pearl-white skin of the woman at the Gatefront Inn in Seiryuu City drifted to the forefront of my mind, and I shook my head rapidly to clear it of impure thoughts. The last thing I need is for my libido to act up here.

Shutting down any carnal desires with sheer willpower, I decided to go back to work on Magic Items.

This time I was gunning for a water heater. The circuit for converting magical power into heat, similar to a Tinder Rod, was relatively simple, so I thought I could tackle it.

Last time, I’d drawn my circuit on a wooden board, but this time I was working with a heater. I figured it’d be better to use something nonflammable.

I opened up Storage in search of a base with good heat resistance and thermal conductivity.

I had a few candidates in mind and settled on some spare pots. One was a thick, probably fireproof iron saucepan, and the other was a copper pot of about the same size.

I drew the heating circuit with circuit solution on the bottom of the pot.

When I passed magic through it, the circuit glowed bright red with intense heat. In the end, the temperature was too high for the copper pot and melted a hole in the bottom. The iron one was fine, but the circuit itself melted a little.

The temperature was too high to use with a kettle, so I adjusted the circuit to lower the temperature to around that of a bonfire.

I poured some water into the pot and carefully charged it with a tiny trickle of magic. The circuit glowed red-hot, and tiny bubbles rose from the bottom of the pot. Before long, the bubbles frothed as the water began to boil.

So in a single pot, one MP was enough to increase the temperature by thirty degrees. Considering that Fire Shot used only ten points per shot, this didn’t seem very efficient.

According to the magic tool textbook, iron tended to diffuse magical power, so that was probably to blame.

Still, I could boil water in less than a minute—that wasn’t half-bad. If I tried to heat it any faster with this simple circuit, it would probably melt.

Because of where I’d placed the circle in the pot, it was totally uncovered, so this tool wouldn’t be good for cooking. You could easily scrape the circuit with a ladle while stirring and break it. Plus, food might get into the crevices of the circuit, making it hard to clean.

For now, I’ll just use this as an electric kettle.

Fresh and flushed from the bath, Lulu and Nana went about preparing dinner under Liza’s guidance.

Once they’d set out the tableware, the younger kids had nothing else to do, so they were left to their own devices. Pochi and Tama joined Mia in collecting pebbles on the riverbank, and Arisa plopped onto a rug with a spell book.

I looked at the meat that was piled up for dinner.

The fully butchered brown wolves added up to nearly nine hundred pounds of meat alone. Aside from what we were eating tonight, we’d buried the rest of the innards.

There was a small mountain of sliced hearts and livers on top of a platter. The dark-red color wasn’t exactly appetizing.

In that case, I preferred the color of the rocket-wolf meat from the day before.

Right, since I have the “Cooking” skill and everything now, maybe I should try it on that meat.

“Liza, I want to try the rocket-wolf meat from yesterday. Could you teach me how to cook it?”

“If you like, I would be happy to cook it for you.”

Liza offered to take care of everything for me, but because I wanted to see the effects of my “Cooking” skill, I insisted that I wanted to do it on my own.

First came the preparations. The rocket-wolf meat was red with very little fat, like foreign beef. I sliced off a small piece of the meat, notched the sinews with a kitchen knife under Liza’s direction, and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

Next, I dropped some fat into a heated pan and coated it in the oil, then fried up some garlic slices and slid them onto small plates. I quickly grilled the meat, listening to the sizzling oil. A little worried about food poisoning, I cooked them well-done.

What’s with this insanely delicious smell?

I flipped the meat once it was nicely seared. Now I just had to wait until it was finished. It seemed to take a long time, maybe because it was monster meat, but going by the senses imparted on me by my “Cooking” skill, everything else about it worked just the same as normal meat.

“Wh-what in the world is that appetizing smell?!”

Setting aside her spell book, Arisa rushed over and peered at my frying pan.

Pochi and Tama had abandoned their pebble collecting and appeared behind Arisa with drool on their lips. For some reason, even Mia and Nana, despite being on vegetarian and liquid diets respectively, showed some interest.

“What do you mean? I’m just cooking the rocket-wolf meat from yesterday so I can taste it.”

“My, my—is that all you’re making? That doesn’t look like nearly enough for everyone.”

Well, yeah. This was just so I could taste it and make sure it didn’t do anything weird. Then I would let someone else try a bit and see if we were unaffected through the next day.

Once I explained, a chorus of volunteers responded.

“I’ll do it! I shall become the ultimate sacrifice!”

“Tama toooo!”

“I wanna be the sacrifice and eat meat, sir!”

“No, this is too dangerous to leave to the children. Allow me to be the subject of the experiment instead.”

“Master, I belong to you. Any duty that is yours is mine as well. Thus, I am the most appropriate subject for an experiment, I advise.”

“Mrrrr. Meat?”

So everyone wants to eat it? Aside from Mia, anyway, who’d only been charmed by the smell and lost interest once she learned it was meat.

…Nana, you need to stick with your liquid diet for a little longer.

“We’ll decide with rock-paper-scissors. Nana, you’re still not supposed to eat solid foods, so you can’t do it.”

“Master! Please reconsider!”

“Nope.”

Nana did her best to convey shock and mortification with her expressionless face, but I dispassionately shot her down.

I felt vaguely guilty, but I could hardly subject the person with the weakest stomach to this experiment.

“Hooray! I win!”

Lulu hopped up and down triumphantly, her fists in the air. I had never seen such straightforward joy from her before.

Watching affectionately as Lulu realized what she was doing with instant embarrassment, I sliced the finished meat into two pieces. Then I tossed one into my mouth.

…What the—?

The meat was more delicious than any I’d ever tasted… No, I guess of all the meat I’d ever had, the fillet of Ohmi beef that the company president had once treated me to was probably a bit better.

But still, why was this steak so delicious?!

The simple seasoning of salt and pepper had drawn out the original flavor of the meat itself.

Despite being so well-done, it seemed to melt in my mouth with a single bite. There wasn’t much in the way of juices, but the savory liquid flowed directly over my tongue. The melted fat from the pan only added to the flavor.

I definitely hadn’t expected it to be this delicious. And the garlic that I’d added gave the taste even better depth.

As the gamy taste, so different from beef, overwhelmed me with enjoyment, the small piece of meat disappeared down my throat.

The scent of garlic in my nose and the aftertaste on my tongue made me long for a second bite.

But, remembering my goal, I forced myself to stay strong.

I checked my log to be sure, but I saw no strange status resistances or anything. As my “Analyze” skill had suggested, the meat didn’t seem to be dangerous.

“It’s delicious. All right, Lulu, you eat it, too.”

I picked up the other piece with chopsticks and held it out to Lulu. Holding her hair back with one hand, Lulu opened her little mouth wide and bit down on the piece of meat. I was surprised she hadn’t hesitated a little more, like her usual shy self.

Delicious food really was bewitching.

Lulu rapidly cycled through several expressions before settling on a blissful smile.

“Ahh… Master, the person who marries you and gets to eat this sort of food every day will be very lucky…”

Lulu let out a suggestive sigh and mumbled as if her appetite itself had possessed her.

“That’s right! Lulu, I’m sure you can get Master to fall for your good looks! How about it, Master? If you marry Lulu, you’ll get a bonus Arisa for free! Just imagine, having two beautiful sisters to have a th—”

Arisa’s sentence was heading down a dangerous road, so I interrupted it with a Forehead Flick Mk II. (The Mk II part doesn’t mean anything.)

Usually, Lulu would respond to any kind of praise with a flood of negativity, but enraptured as she was with the steak, she paid no attention to Arisa at all.

Checking my log, I saw that I had gained the new titles Meat Master Chef and Sorcerer of the Dining Table.

When I closed the log, my eyes fell on the dish covered in oil from the meat, so I washed it in a nearby pail. Oil stains could be very stubborn, after all.

“Aah!”

“My hopes and dweams are gone, sir…”

All I’d done was wash the steak dish, but it evoked a scream from Tama and a wail of despair from Pochi.

…Did they want to lick the juices off the dish?

Liza didn’t say anything, but she didn’t react as the pot boiled over, either.

…All right, all right. I guess I have to make some for everyone.

In the end, everyone but Mia ate some of the rocket-wolf steak.

At first, I had planned to make Nana hold off, but when she called upon the mysterious legendary technique known as the “jiggle-jiggle,” I had no choice but to give in.

Not wanting to accept the reality of the legend, Arisa and Mia protested in some way or other, but I was too deep in my own bliss to remember very clearly.

Everyone was still hungry after the small steak pieces, but I didn’t want them to eat a lot and get a stomachache, so I offered them the cooked hearts and livers from the brown wolves instead.

Compared to the rocket-wolf steak, the brown wolf meat was a bit of an acquired taste, but it was still delicious in its own way.

I guess a maxed-out “Cooking” skill could probably make even low-quality ingredients taste good.

I should note that I made a vegetable and mushroom stir-fry for Mia, since she was left out of the meat dishes. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a very extensive cooking repertoire.

“Ahh, to think we’ll be able to eat such delicious food every day from now on…”

“Not really. I’m only going to do it when the mood strikes me.”

I liked good food as much as anyone, but it was impossible to make something like that every day. I’d definitely get tired of it. Plus, I’d feel bad, since Liza had been teaching Lulu and Nana to cook.

However, I did enjoy meals made with a maxed-out “Cooking” skill, myself, so I figured I’d take on cooking duty once in a while from now on.

“Aww, reallyyy…?”